How destructive are nuclear weapons really? • Hacker News Board

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#71

Post by playpause » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

cglan wrote: post #3

I think it might be for the better that we think nuclear weapons are world ending in that it stops them from being used

Most of my non-tech friends believe that nuclear apocalypse would entail at least the end of all human life. I think this only makes them more complacent in a strange way. They can shrug it off with gallows humour - if it happens, well, that was that, I only hope it’s quick. They don’t have to think about the reality of how life would change in the years following a nuclear war. The myth of nuclear apocalypse is a kind of licence to stop mentally engaging with the issue, which I don’t think is good. Not to mention the nihilistic side effects of believing one is going through life on borrowed time. Pushing falsehoods for the greater good always has unintended consequences.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#72

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #23

hammock wrote: post #4

The conclusion: >Nuclear war is bad, and we should be very careful not to have one, but it is not as bad as it is often made out to be. Some of this is because the threat has routinely been exaggerated by anti-nuclear groups, and some of it is the result of arms control efforts over the past half-century, which have significantly reduced the potential human toll of a nuclear war It’s odd to me that he blames exaggera…

Internal US government documents estimate something like a 90% population loss after a war that only targets our ICBM silos. (Ie not one missile hits a populated area.) The fallout destroys our food supplies and wipes out livestock, making farming impossible: most of the US population starves within a year. There is a reason the US government doesn’t spend a lot of effort preparing the population for a nuclear war, a…

There appears to be a fair amount of internal dissension within the government on that point. Nuclear War Survival Skills [1], also a government publication, explicitly calls out this attitude as both scientifically inaccurate and irresponsible, as there are a number of things the population can do to dramatically increase their survivability in a nuclear war.

[1] https://ia800501.us.archive.org/35/items/NuclearWarSurvivalS...

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#73

Post by psyc » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #65

"Again, nuclear war is bad, and we should be very careful not to have one, but it is not as bad as it is often made out to be." What kind of person gets up in the morning and decides this is the thing they need to write about and tell the world today? How are we served by this?

Some of us are just naturally curious, and cats be damned.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#74

Post by javajosh » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of content like this in the run up to nuking Kyiv. Despicable.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#75

Post by yeetsfromhellL2 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

If we go back to 19th/20th century tech it'll be a problem because all the resources which are easy to extract have already been got. Much of the resource extraction done today is only possible because modern technology enables it. We may not ever be able to get back to where we're at now if we have a setback like that.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#76

Post by extheat » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #60

leto_ii wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, it's exactly as destructive as I think. My thoughts exactly. Setting the world back 100+ years is a disaster of gigantic proportions. I also find it odd that the author didn't even attempt to provide an estimate of the possible victim count. I'm basically sure it would at least be in the tens, perhaps hundreds of millions. This is to say nothing about a possible future arms race that would increase the numbers…

And this would be back hundred+ years in civilization, with the easiest energy extraction sources for coal/oil etc already gone. Humanity would have a very hard time following the same tech/energy ladder back to now.

I don't think so, I think humans would probably be able to build back pretty quickly given the tech and manufacturing capability we have today. Yeah, 95% of it may have been destroyed worst case, but even at The biggest problem I see is the amount of habitable land on the Earth. For short periods of time, people wandering in nuclear wastelands will mostly be OK, however it's not safe to inhabit so we'd have to move the remaining infrastructure to safe places on the planet, wherever that may be. But I think it does underscore the need to diversify off of the Earth.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#77

Post by chakalakasp » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #49

happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

I encounter a lot of people with the "species-ending nuclear winter" false belief, and their attitudes are usually something like, "Oh, what can you do? Just have a drink and enjoy the fireworks." I get the sense the author is working against this line of thinking, because there is in fact a lot you can do (both in terms of preparing and in terms of responding).

How do you prepare for the complete breakdown of society and 200 million survivors competing for resources that will support maybe 15 million people in a blasted, utterly destroyed landscape with no infrastructure or production.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#78

Post by hwers » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

poulpy123 wrote: post #43

I'm not very comfortable with all the talks I hear or read about how nuclear war isn't so bad since russia invaded ukraine

It's just a form of stress coping. It's entirely delusional and I think it's very important we not allow this type of thinking to be a normal form of thought (as uncomfortable as it is).

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#79

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

gmuslera wrote: post #20

"Known" nuclear weapons. Good part of the motivation of that arms race was to discourage the enemy to start a war, even if they had everything to win it. In that line, there had been rumours of doomsday devices (like Dead Hand from URSS in the Cold War) that could put in danger most life on Earth, that could be triggered if some side loses or other defined conditions. It is a level up from mutual assured destruction.…

> rumours of doomsday devices (like Dead Hand from URSS in the Cold War) that could put in danger most life on Earth, that could be triggered if some side loses or other defined conditions.

The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost...if you keep it a secret!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozg7gEchjuM

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#80

Post by pixl97 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

empthought wrote: post #61

pixl97 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem we have today is that of specialization. I dont believe there is a viable scenario where only 40% of the population dies. We either lose something like less than 10% of the population or we loose over 80%. Food is the reason. In 1900 before the green revolution there were less than 2 billion people on the planet and huge portions of them grew their own food. After that point industrialisation and mass fos…

2 billion people today rely on subsistence farming, it's silly to think 90% of people on earth would die on account of that alone.

They survive on subsistence farming because their near large urban cities don't. The moment those cities are not fed the terrible order they already exist in gets worse. A supersaturation even can only exist as long as energy is being applied. When that is lost (fossils fuels) then a corrective event occurs.